English Synonyms: A corpus-based analysis of errors made by Chinese learners

吴莹

中图分类号：G648文献标识码：B文章编号：1672-1578（2014）14-0012-02Introduction

Misuse of English words is a typical feature of Chinglish, which is ungrammatical and resulting in comprehension problems between native English speakers and Chinese learners.

This paper focuses on one aspect of vocabulary development-acquisition of English synonyms, which has been proved as a major problem for Chinese learners (Wei, 2011). Errors of using English synonyms taken from SWECCL will be illustrated first, with explanations of this kind of Chinglish and implications for L2 instruction following behind.

1.Literature Review

1.1First Language Transfer。First language transfer refers to the learning process in which learners apply the linguistic features from their first languages to target languages, demonstrating the influence of L1 on L2 acquisition (Nitschke, Kidd & Serratrice, 2010).

Positive transfer and negative transfer are identified as two types of L1 transfer-the former can result in correct language production since certain unit or structure of both languages is the same; and the later tends to cause intelligibility problems in that learners adopt L1 linguistic features that do not exist in L2 when producing L2 (Mather, 2000). Moreover, according to Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis (CAH), which focusing on identifying the similarities and differences of learner's L1 and L2, the greater the differences between the two languages the more negative transfer can be expected (Lado, 1957).

1.2Chinglish at Lexical Level。Under the influence of language transfer, distinctive forms of learner English are produced, labeled with a blend of the names of the two languages in question (Porter & Duncan, 1953). Chinglish is one of the learner English which is regarded as spoken or written English language produced by Chinese learners who draw upon Chinese rules and structures mechanically as a result of mother tongue interference (Li, 2005). It is incomprehensible and unacceptable, usually causing barriers in international communication and cultural exchanges.

As shown in the study down by Xiao and Zuo (2006), the inappropriate choosing of vocabulary is considered as a distinguishing feature of Chinguish. In addition, as the fundamental difference between languages is lexical difference and vocabulary learning lays the foundation of other English skills' acquisition like reading and writing, Xiao and Zuo also argued that the high frequency of Chinglish at lexical level indicates that the biggest difficulty for Chinese students is lexis.

2.Corpus Findings

2.1Introduction of SWECCL.The examples adopted in this paper are taken form SWECCL (Spoken and Written Corpus of Chinese Learners), a relatively large and authentic corpus in mainland China. It consists of two corpora-SECCL (Spoken English Corpus of Chinese Learners), which contains 2,056,206 words and WECCL (Written English Corpus of Chinese Learners), which contains 2,505,825 words.

2.2 Two Types of Errors

2.2.1 Different expressions in English with the same Chinese expression.Two types of errors have been clarified after the corpus research. The first type is 'different expressions in English share the same Chinese equivalent'.

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Table 1. Different Expression of "大"

ChineseEnglishChinglish 大风Strong windHeavy wind 大雨Heavy rainHard rain 大浪High wavesA lot of waves 大雾Thick fogBig fog As shown in Table 1, Chinese use the same adjective '大' to describe all the four nouns. However, in English, different expressions should be employed. In this way, Chinese learners sometimes make mistakes like 'big fog'.

Another example is different expressions of '学习' in English. English speakers say 'acquire knowledge' and 'study hard' to express '学习知识' and '努力学习'. Chinese learners, who regard 'acquire', 'study' and 'learn' as the same may produce Chinglish like 'study knowledge' and 'learn hard'.

In addition, Chinglish examples can also be found when referring to '吃' and '喝', such as 'eat medicine'(吃药) and 'drink soup'(喝汤) instead of 'take medicine' and 'have/eat soup'.

2.2.2Mixing up two words.The second type is 'mixing two words up'. For instance, not having fully understood the meaning and property of 'lonely' and 'alone', students sometimes made sentences like the following:(1) One time when I ill in bed , my grandmother was ill , so there is no one to look after me , I feel very alone , feel very sad. (2)They will feel alone at home and keep a dog.(3)I will look after some old people who need care and live lonely. (4)The boy cried out, Tom ask him why he was here lonely.

'Politician' and 'statesman' is another problem for Chinese students. They produced sentences as listed below when ignoring the fact that 'politician' is derogatory.(1)I dreamed of having the same rainbow leading me to become a scientist, a politician ... some very successful people.(2) ...males occupy most of the important and complicated professions, such as country chief, politician, militarist and so on.(3)I think nowadays we'd better ... think about to be a translator or something else more than thinking about to be a politician or an astronaut.

3.Discussion

3.1Negative Transfer of Chinese.There are a number of reasons behind the misuse of English synonyms, among which Chinese transfer is primary. Unlike Chinese, English involves numerous synonyms for it involving words from many other languages such as Latin and French (Wei, 2011). English, therefore, usually has different words or expressions to describe the same Chinese meaning. The remoteness between these two languages makes it particularly difficult for Chinese learners to learn English synonyms (Tseng, 2006).

Chinese learners, influenced by the L1 lexical system, are likely to have false assumptions of equivalence of English and Chinese words. When Chinese students rely on their established Chinese lexical system to produce English, they tend to apply one English word in different situations and associate it with different words, or treat English words which share the same Chinese translation equally, ignoring the difference between them or their collocations and idiomatic expressions (Wong, 2009).

3.2Problems of Classroom Instruction.Secondly, classroom instruction could also induce Chinglish at lexical level. When giving instruction in vocabulary, teachers usually emphasize more on the Chinese translation and formation of the new word, paying little attention to the cultural differences between two languages or the pragmatic usage of it. For example, English speakers use 'eat soup' rather than 'drink soup' because soup in English-speaking countries is much thicker than water or juice and spoon should be used when having it. However, Chinese soup is almost as thin as water or juice, so the same verb '喝' is used in '喝汤', '喝水' and '喝果汁'. Without knowing the difference, students are likely to directly translate '喝汤' into 'drink soup'.

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This kind of teaching practice, lacking enough quantity and high quality of input, may gain students a large vocabulary but not the pragmatic success of applying them. They can memorize the word but may not use it appropriately and efficiently in communication (Wei, 2011).

3.3Textbook Design.Besides, textbooks and English-Chinese dictionaries which only provide simple Chinese translations to English words should also be blamed. Teachers are unable to teach everything. Students have to rely on textbooks and dictionaries for vocabulary learning after class. When these tools cannot offer the proper explanations and usage of English synonyms, Chinese students are likely to encounter problems (Liu et al. 2004).

4.Implication

4.1Classroom Instruction.Based on the problems discussed above, two pieces of advice has been provided in this part. As for classroom instruction, teachers should attach great importance to lexical teaching and help the students to get rid of the false assumption on the semantic and syntactic equivalence of English and Chinese (Sun, 2003). Sometimes comparisons should be made between an English word and its Chinese equivalence to draw students' attention to the differences between two languages.

Besides, it is essential for teachers to explain the pragmatic rules of a new word, and put it into different contexts for the students to see which situation the word is in. In this way, students are expected to have an explicit understanding of the usage of this new word.

4.2Design of textbooks and dictionaries.Concerning the design of textbooks and dictionaries, Cunningsworth (1995) suggests that good vocabulary textbook and dictionary tend to exploit 4 features: semantic relations, referring to word groups according to opposites, synonyms, hyponyms etc.; situational relationships, meaning word sets related to certain situation like 'sport' and 'politics'; word collocations such as 'food and drink' andword building.

Providing the above information, textbooks and dictionaries could make learners sensitive to the structure of the word and the different relationships that exist within it, and help them acquire the word rather than memorize it.

Conclusion

Influenced by Chinese and the inappropriate way of classroom instruction, English synonym seems to be a tough area for Chinese learners. SWECCL is an especially useful tool for English teachers to find out errors made by Mainland Chinese learners and supplies teachers with the general idea about students' actual use of certain word.

In order to assist students in synonyms acquisition, teachers should take efforts to give comprehensive instructions; textbooks and dictionaries should be well designed to render valuable assistance.Reference

[1]Cunningsworth, A. (1996). Choosing your Coursebook. Macmillan Education: Oxford,UK.

[2]Lado, R. (1957). Linguistics across cultures: Applied linguistics for language teachers. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

[3]Li, Xuehong. (2005). On reasons for the phenomenon of Chinglish. Journal of Hefei University of Technology, 19(4).

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[4]Liu, Huimei, Frank, F. & Wei Qian (2004), Lost in Translation: Millions of Tourists to China are Confused by a Myriad of "Chinglish" Misinterpretations, US-China Foreign Language, 2(10):18-20

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